Modmen Lack Game Knowledge

Ik i quoted your entire post, but i only mean to reply to the last section.

By teaming i am talking about blatant teamers. Not those who abuse the ffa system by substituing in other players. Its gotten so bad now that I can predict when players are going to team and I am 90% correct with them.

Most of the times I try to report these guys, the staff ignore it and instead go for cakewars reach reports. If only QA can ban for reach and anyone can ban for blatant teaming, why not just go to the server with blatant teaming?

I did skim over your other arguments, but I did read one thing saying something like "remember mods are volunteers, therefore they shouldnt be required to do their job". You act as if they didnt sign up and go through an extensive training process for this position.
If a mod cant handle having to take 2 seconds of their time to read reports and answer them, they should resign or not have signed up for that position to begin with.

Imo mods should know about every game mechanic if they want to moderate the server. Or at least have them say the games they play and limit them to only banning people in certain servers. Mods false banning shouldnt be a problem and shouldnt be excused if the person was just using basic game mechanics.
The argument that "they shouldnt be required to know every game mechanic" makes no sense. They chose to be staff, therefore they should be aware of basic things like spider's directional jump. Nothing can justify a staff member, someone whos supposed to improve the game experience, making the experience worse just becauss they dont know about something.

Again, if someone doesnt understand how the very few amount of mechanics in the main game works, they shouldnt be given power to remove players from the server.

I also saw an argument about "just appeal, its no big deal", but I dont think you understand that appeals can take up to days to be processed and are sometimes denied. The appeal itself takes almost half the time to get unbanned to begin with, so all it really does is reduce the ban time to begin with, when they shouldnt have been banned in the first place.

Also, even if someone appeals a ban, their next ban is still a longer time. This has happened to me before when i got falsely gwen banned twice. The first time it was 14 days or something, and the next time it was almost a month ban. This happened even though I appealed the first ban. Thankfully I appealed both of them, but if the second appeal wasnt accepted (which happens more often than you think), I wouldve gotten a 1 month ban for doing absolutely nothing.

 

This quote right here literally gives off the impression that you question my opinion on the staff team, since I never stated "the workings of the staff team is terrible." I gave examples of silly mistakes that never get fixed over the years and said that this behavior is unacceptable. That sentence implies that you think I don't see modmen as "human" or that you are simply offended by my criticisms towards your staff community.

I'm sure this is true, however my point is that to prevent these mistakes from happening with OTHER staff members, the mentors should make it clear to everyone else they are mentoring, not the single staff member that got it wrong. By only notifying the modman who messed up, you are not helping any other modmen. You are just waiting for every single staff member to mess up once in every field possible.

All the scenarios I listed in the original thread were not involved with trainees. I can understand trainees making SOME mistakes during their time, however if you are a modman or higher then I expect work done correctly.

No, my point is that those glitches and bugs has an impact on the punishment system and the responsibilities of modmen. Since GWEN isn't fixed, so many hackers are still active on the server. Some modmen are not smart enough to identify these hacks, and will then ignore these players in game. Many times they wouldn't even THINK to record and report to QA, simply because they don't know much about closeting or even basic hacks sometimes.

I was not referring to you here. I'm talking about past threads I've created in forums suggestions and server discussion. My threads either get deleted because a modman was offended, or closed because modmen assume that the solution or answer to my concern has already been addressed, which is hardly ever true. There is always a lack of room for discussion, especially when suggesting something that could be altered and made to work out on the server or website.

I am not going to waste my time praising staff for the good work they've done on the server, since this is literally expected of them. I'm not trying to "illustrate a picture" of the staff team doing a terrible job, but more so point out many situations that should never be happening in the first place. I included 3 examples, but that doesn't change the fact that hundreds of more mistakes are done by staff and need to be fixed.

You say this as if it is easy to write up a report or privately message you on forums in the middle of a game with said hackers/cheaters. I would probably be busy trying not to DIE in the game. Even if they haven't been dealt with, I highly doubt a staff member is willing to stand around the server and wait for this player to come back online, and then proceed to find them and watch them. Plus, a lot of teaming occurs in SSM solos specifically, and the chances of a teamer coming back online and teaming again is not certain.

 

Even so, some modmen don't know nearly enough about more common hacks like flying and bhop. Those two are present in so many pvp games and I still think every modman should be aware of these two hacks specifically, and at least be able to differentiate them from abilities in SSM regardless if they play the game or not.

No, I'm mad not because of the time it takes to ensure if someone is hacking but because the mistakes modmen make occur over and over. I've been on this server since 2013 and there are countless numbers of times that modmen are clueless about flying and bhop in SSM. If one modman were to make this mistake, I expect them to make sure no other modman makes it too, instead of correcting only his/her slip-up. Mentors should make these mistakes clear to ALL the people they are mentoring.

I understand this. However if a modman is not willing to take requests, deal with reports appropriately, fix their mistakes, improve the overall staff community, and put a decent amount of time into moderating the server, maybe the position isn't cut out for them. I get that it's a voluntary position but that doesn't make it any more casual than it already is. Moderating the server is literally what most of you signed up for, so you should've expected this.

 

Yeah we could do more because as an avid Ssm player, I know the ins and outs of the game but not all do.

In reality, staff management has an opportunity to teach the staff team more about the game mode so they may moderate the game more effectively.

I’ll promise this. As the docs manager for StM i will reach out to the SSM GI team and see if we can work together to create a document outlining game mode abilities and other considerations for reference so that it may help our staff members moderate SSM more effectively.

I do see where you’re coming from and so now, let’s work to make it better.

 

In this case I suggest maybe having reports on closet hacks require certain things on the screen such as an add-on from a client that detects block reach or something. I can see why reach, anti-kb, and ac are so difficult to punish for, but with an improved GWEN there can still be better moderation even if it's not perfect. It's just really really bad right now, like most cw games I join, there's almost always a closeter of some sort and I really hope this issue is resolved soon.

 

Thank you for understanding. I know it's a bit difficult for non-SSM or pvp modmen to really get what I'm trying to say. Hope you guys can come up with a solution to make this issue better.

 

No - I said nothing like that. I agreed with you. What I said was that you can't expect moderators to be knowledgeable in every single game, and that because that is so there are ways they can communicate to each other in-game for second opinions and whatnot.

What I also said which you completely twisted is that I, personally, didn't go near Champions or Minestrike reports because I didn't trust myself to not potentially false punish someone unless someone is being completely and utterly blatant. I also said that I always got second opinions for those or forwarded them to someone that knows what they are talking about.

Firstly, not every staff member can answer forum reports. That's reports patrol. Applications for the team are not open 24/7. They're open every couple of months. The people that want extra report responsibilities go for it.

As for /reports, as I said before, I did them - a lot of Moderators do them. There are internal leaderboards staff make up for most /reports answered each month. More staff do them than you think; thousands are answered every month. Unfortunately just over half that are submitted are answered, but forum reports on the other hand are always always always all answered. Some might take longer if it's for something like Inapp name, reach, etcetc as that needs RC/QA but they get answered.

There are quotas as a Moderator. If you don't reach them, you do face consequences. Don't think monitors/mentors don't expect a Trainee/Mod to moderate. Of course they do.

For your first point, these are completely different things. You're saying "all or nothing" here. Either they know every single game and can therefore punish literally everywhere, or they are forced to stay within the 3 games they play consistently and are forbidden from punishing anywhere else. That is a system that will never work.

Would you be a voluntary staff member if someone told you "oh, by the way, you can only apply if you play every single one of our 20 games regularly"? I know I wouldn't. I agree with you that staff should have general knowledge of every game/the rules...that is encouraged, taught, and practiced, although I agree that probably not enough. Sven replied to this thread and began working on an SSM game feature document for staff members in order to help with this a little bit. I never denied your argument, however. I mentioned multiple, multiple times in my response that a certain number of hacks or rule offenses are very blatant and easily distinguishable from normal behaviour in games. To recap for you: This includes but is most certainly not limited to:

• fly
• bhop
• speed
• ghosting
• kill aura
• exploiting
• certain types of game trolling

Many staff members will punish for these already. Once again, if they are not sure, they are free to contact any other staff for assistance. Furthermore you also threw the bold statement that "unless you have never made and will never make a mistake in your life you should not be a staff member". Once again, how do you expect people to want to moderate for you? Staff members will make mistakes which get fixed. If they keep repeating, the staff may suffer consequences, and in extreme cases, this can lead to getting demoted. Don't think that because a staff member incorrectly punished you/a friend once, that the entire staff team is terrible, lacks structure, has 0 knowledge of the game and should get completely reworked because the system is not working and is making the experience terrible. On a grander scale, the ratio of mistakes to justified punishments/actions is pretty negligible. The resources are out there for players - appeal false punishments or report a staff member by creating a ticket if they are abusing their power.

I agree staff members should have general knowledge of popular games like SSM which is why a lot do and also why Sven replied to this thread saying that he'll try to come up with some sort of doc outlining main gameplay features to emphasize this. There are people on your side, do not think I am arguing against what you are saying - I completely agree. And yes, there are staff that ignore calls for help for reasons I don't know. No way do I support this type of behaviour, especially if they are sitting in Lobby-1. I've seen staff that get tagged, they respond asking what the player wants, the player tells them of a hacker and the mod is not heard from again and instead keeps sitting in the lobby. There are inconsistencies and I want to fight for them to be gotten rid of as much as possible as well.

I don't know how long you guys are taking to write an appeal but if you have evidence that your punishment is false it can take you a solid 15 min to submit an appeal with the evidence following the guide and format and if you did so chances are the appeal will get accepted.

If you don't have evidence your appeal can take a little bit longer but if you read my response properly you would note how I said that staff are pretty much required to revoke your punishment if there is no evidence against you as well.

You said appeals get denied more often than I think - where are the numbers? Tag any appeals team member on this thread and they will tell you so many appeals get accepted and the ones that do not usually don't follow the appeal guide which is linked in front of them as they are writing the appeal. I'd like to note how you also stated that after literally confirming that both of your false GWEN punishment appeals got accepted with no issues. It's possible then, is it not?

 

I literally resigned from staff because of this and it's still happening. Gotta love this server!

Yeah staff need to revamp, or at least include more methods of training. "Our training is well-rounded and flexible" or "Trainees are encouraged to play all games" are nowhere near adequate counterarguments to @Ducksicle's post. Change the trials, force staff to play all games while they're still learning the tools they have at their disposal, and give them extra guidance with games that are not 'Vanilla PvP'. I agree with most of what @shihanna said, though I'd argue that there must be a mandatory aspect to this issue rather than one that encourages staff to learn these skills. On the topic of external input, there needs to be some level of collusion with entities such as GI or top players in this process. Their experiences, regardless of whether they are staff or not, should absolutely be taken advantage of in this scenario; trainees should learn what they can from the best players, and apply that knowledge to their moderation work.

This isn't about specialization to a level which is seen within CM/A. This is simply about basic training and knowledge in more than just CW, SKY, and NANO. Differentiating a Bhopper from a DDJ or chicken's flight from fly hacks should be the absolute baseline of knowledge staff have. If they cannot moderate their own games to a basic degree, then they have failed as staff. I am not without fault either - I had no experience in BR and banned someone who was using leap to get up a ledge for flight hacks within my first week of being a trainee.

I think this is a point which players overly-criticize - I definitely agree. Players tend to look down upon staff who ask for a second opinion or any form of help in their moderation. I sometimes felt embarrassed to call in someone more qualified than I was during my trial, but in the end it lowered the chance for mistakes and greatly improved the player experience. It is unfair to give staff crap for needing help. This is where better training comes in though - more extensive and detailed training would greatly improve the chances of success across the board.

I love you a lot oscar, and I do not once doubt your skills as a mentor, but it seems this is not working, or that this is nowhere near enough. As I said, if someone is encouraged to learn something, they will most definitely not learn it to the extent to which they would if it were mandatory.

Staff on other server, regardless of their ranks and permissions, are required to know this. Even so, it is the absolute basis of all PvP-based cheats and can greatly help with recognizing other client modifications. I don't think this point is adequately excused with "they don't need to know". After all, the whole arguing point of this thread is the fact that staff don't inherently need to know the skills we're asking them to learn, but having them at one's hands greatly decreased the chance for future mistakes to happen.

Again, this is true. SSM is not a game where false bans usually occur, but to our credit, these bans shouldn't happen at all. Disavowing this whole thread by saying "mistakes happen" is not the way to handle things - the staff team should be doing their best to prevent any case of false bans regardless of their circumstances. If there are players who have had this happen before, it is (in my book) more than enough reason to make a change.

StM does a good job. Please do not make any mistake. @Oscaros_ knows better than anyone on this thread how the staff team executes their training. He makes valid points and I agree with much that he has said, the same goes for much of what @Sven has mentioned. The mentors present on Mineplex are the best of the best, and I can attest to that without and doubt. My only issue is that the general training given to staff is not as in-depth as it could be. This is the issue. We simply want more depth - I've said this so many times now.
The StM team is quite large; Toki is a very capable admin. They have the means to expand their trial process, and it should be done. No massive changes need to be made, simply allocating some time for each game every week would do more than enough. Players like us in these threads are more than willing to help and pitch in ideas - it's been said multiple times. I really hope something is invested into this, and that this thread is not simply thrown out the window and excused because "the staff training process is already good enough".
Anything that is adequate can always be improved. Like I said, this has happened before, and it will happen again. A false ban is all it took for be to pop and finally resign, mainly because that mod did not need evidence for the ban, and was not punished or corrected for their actions. It's the staff's word versus that of the less-credible player in these cases; with the punishment system being as it is (with no evidence for movement hacks), there is no coming back from such a ban without great difficulty and turmoil. Why not prevent it in the first place?

 

one of my first reports I had coming back on the server was for map exploiting, little did I know that it wasn't actually map exploiting and rather just parkour. The report was still accepted; at this time I was not an experienced player since I hadn't played in over 5 years. I would've though the staff member who looked over it would know better than I did. congrats on another spot-on thread outlining mineplex's core problems

 

This is interesting to me because if I remember correctly, I think I did the same thing when I was in my first couple days/weeks as a Trainee lmao

^^^This! There are things in the staff team that could 100% improve but asking others for a second opinion/help should never be looked down upon. The players that don't want to normalize this are the ones that heavily complain about false punishments or lack of really really basic game knowledge (which a lot of experienced staff do have for every game, but of course new staff members might be iffy on some things). I joined the staff team thinking I knew everything there is to know from my reports as a player and experience on the server for years. And yet I made sooo many mistakes early on for things I didn't even think I'd ever mess up on.

I do know this and agree however the servers that require staff members to recognise reach really easily are usually complete (or almost) pvp servers. Mineplex isn't really, with the likes of NANO, Mixed Arcade, SB, MB, etc. I'm not surprised with how they have it here - half of the popular games do not revolve around pvp + Mineplex was always advertised as a mini-game server rather than a pvp/fighting one. Also, people act as if reach false bans don't happen on those servers; of course they do.

I think QA should stay banning for reach. Many hackers with it are dealt with but I think if you want to heavily decrease chances of false banning people, which I accidentally cut out from your quote but you did mention this, then allowing only a certain group to ban for a hack which does tend to be a grey area is a smart choice.


As for the rest of your arguments, I agree. More in-depth training should be a requirement. Especially considering closeting is becoming an even bigger problem, at least hardwiring fundamentals on every game into the staff members will do a lot more than leaving them partially trained.

 

I don't really understand what this point has to do with what we were talking about. Obviously hackers normally try to hide their hacks, but my point was just that modmen should know what real bhop and fly hacks look like in game.

I don't have a problem with modmen needing a second opinion, however the scenario I listed in the original thread simply should not even need one because the hack was so blatant. That's my point. If someone is blatantly hacking and a modman is STILL confused, they don't deserve their position until they are able to easily identify these hacks.

There is no need for this. While "training" staff members, all they need to know is what common hacks look like. Since spider and wolf are directional kits in SSM and are COMMONLY MISTAKEN as bhopping, it should be more clear to every staff member not to make this mistake. If there is a player literally speeding across the map, a modman should automatically KNOW that something is not right, instead of saying "oh this is normal chickens can do this." You don't need to know every single thing about SSM kits to know what different hacks look like.

Like I said earlier, my intention is not to hurt any staff members' feelings but to point out how silly these things are. It's such an easy solution to just communicate more around the staff community and learn from each other's mistakes rather than waiting to mess up on your own. Many staff members also waste their time on the server by making community members experiences WORSE through said false punishments and such. You're wasting your own time and the player's time. I still believe that several staff members are flat out lazy and are unwilling to deal with certain issues going including reports. If a modman is more concerned about their game than players requesting help, then they shouldn't have signed up for their position and should've just remained a normal player. The server doesn't need more staff, but more QUALITY staff because clearly many modmen know not nearly as much as players that specialize in different games.

 

Alright so wanted to provide an update here. I spoke with @Veans who is the SSM GI lead and a document outlining all the kits and abilities has been made although is incomplete. As it is a long document, I am going to go ahead and pick out some of the most important info to know regarding jumping (spider wolf chicken), abilities (bone rush, splash, firefly) and wall grab as well as knock back considerations (kits especially like Iron Golem, Guardian).

Hopefully following the creation of this short doc, more SSM-related content will appear in a Trainees training regime during their trial.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to talk further and thank you for bringing this up in a respectful manner. It certainly helps for us to find a solution :)

 

Good to hear! Thank you for being proactive and listening to us, we appreciate it!
Some important info to add to such a document for staff would be hitbox, movement, and anticheat details. There isn't much, but it's important to understand, especially for PvP. I assume I can't talk about how smash mobs interacts with GWEN notifications for staff, but pointers such as how Guardian's hitbox is always a block's displacement from its kit would be an important point to make. Including the fact that hitbox looking direction is also not reliable is important as well; the Y coordinate of a player's looking direction matches the kit instead of the player, and hitboxes will spontaneously 'freak out' and spasm during gameplay, mimicking KA headsnaps, even though it is not the true looking direction of a player. Staff should not rely on hitbox information for bans.
Basics on how to triple jump from ground and off blocks would also be good information to have present - as well as a list of known/commonly used glitches (smash kit swapping, glitching into blocks and structures with wither and enderman - especially on Ancient Islands etc...)
Thanks once again for your efforts, hopefully we'll see more love given to Smash Mobs and other modes with more modified gameplay.